| By :
Alison Withers
Copyright (c) 2010 Alison Withers Over the years, self storage facilities have accommodated far more unusual uses than the obvious ones of storing furniture, family heirlooms, household documents, or storing stock or business paperwork such as annual accounts or client records. But over the years people have come up with some much more unusual and innovative uses for self-store space. It's not only the young who nurture dreams of palying in a band. That, of course, means musical instruments, amplifiers, microphones, speakers and so on. However, storage units are not only convenient spaces to keep all these pieces of equipment together and secure, they've also been used by many fledgling bands for practise as well. People in an urban environment are not likely to have easy access to a handy farm building, so practising in a self-store unit is a much more civilised option than the garage or basement (assuming they're not already full of stuff) and annoying the neighbours. Units have also been used by music teachers as a classroom for students, and by individual musicians hiring them as a place to practice. The space is also perfect for choreographers, dance and theatre groups needing somewhere to rehearse, not to mention storing costumes. For anyone who has a hobby that needs some space they can be used for dressmaking, craft workshops, working spaces for artists, sculptors, printmakers, film makers and photographers. There are plenty of stories around about the strange objects that have been safely stored - including 22-ft microlight aircraft that was kept safely in a 20-ft long unit - by parking it diagonally. Self store units have also done duty as wardrobes during home moves with people coming in each morning to get changed for the day! As the world becomes a more urban and crowded place finding a space to get away and just be quiet becomes ever more difficult and the writer knows of one person who actually rented a a space to be able to sit somewhere quiet and read the daily paper. Possible the strangest story of all comes from the USA where a self storage client defaulted on payment and, as is normally the practice, the contents of the unit were auctioned. In this instance it emerged that among the possessions being sold was an amputated and embalmed leg - formerly attached to the owner - which had been hidden in a barbecue smoker. Astonishingly, the leg found a buyer who wanted to keep the leg to use as an exhibit in a Halloween display. However, the owner objected, saying that he wished to be reunited with his leg at his death. A dispute resulted, involving the police, but the case was finally resolved in the amputee's favour. It is obviously important to check if there are any restrictions in force at any unit being considered, which will usually prohibit storing anything that could be toxic or a fire risk, and equally it makes no sense to store anything perishable. It has actually happened that one unfortunate drug trafficker is recorded as having stored a quantity of a certain illegal substance in herbal form, then left it for too long only to find that their potential profits had rotted away. But otherwise, because all units are fully ventilated and well lit, the possibilities are as wide as your imagination.
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